Allergy Treatment Carson City NV

This page provides useful content and local businesses that can help with your search for Allergy Treatment. You will find helpful, informative articles about Allergy Treatment, including "Inside Winter Allergies" and "Soothing Sensitive Skin". You will also find local businesses that provide the products or services that you are looking for. Please scroll down to find the local resources in Carson City, NV that will answer all of your questions about Allergy Treatment.

Inside Winter Allergies

When it's cold outside, a cozy home is sublime. But for indoor allergy sufferers, this comfort can morph into a miserable sneezy nightmare. Fortunately, there are ways to create a breath-easy home environment.

By Patrick Dougherty

From November, 2005

As the first frost blankets the cold ground, seasonal allergy sufferers rejoice. For those sniffly souls, their winter wonderland is a frozen landscape devoid of the pollen-spewing grass, weeds and leaves that brought them allergy misery through the spring, summer and fall. Winter does indeed offer reprieve for some, but for a considerable portion of the 40 million Americans who struggle with allergic reactions, the sun’s declining rays foreshadow a holiday nightmare more horrifying than coal in the stocking—indoor allergies.

Just as we shut out the blustery winds, nippy temperatures and snowfalls of the winter months, we shut ourselves in with a host of indoor allergens, or substances that trigger allergic reactions.

Fortunately, with a few simple steps, you can modify your winter home environment to minimize indoor allergens and maximize your comfort through the holidays.

Indoor allergens include cockroach droppings, dust mite body parts and droppings (yikes!), molds, animal dander and house dust, which is a mélange of all the above and more. “We’re exposed to these allergens year-round,” says Dr. Mark Pettus, author of The Savvy Patient: The Ultimate Advocate for Quality Health Care (Capital Cares), “but they tend to get worse in the winter months, when our windows are closed and there is little fresh air circulating through the house.” The good news? While outdoor seasonal allergens are beyond our control, we have a tremendous influence over indoor allergens—enough to eliminate indoor allergy symptoms altogether.

Mistaken Identity

The first step in overcoming indoor allergies is identifying which allergens trigger your symptoms. Visiting an allergist or immunologist for allergy tests can isolate the culprit, helping you to focus your home environment modification where it is needed most. Although all the aforementioned sneeze-inducers are forces to be reckoned with, the most significant and ubiquitous indoor allergens come from dust mites and pets.

“Indoor allergens like animal dander become airborne, usually in the form of microscopic dust particles,” Pettus says. “When you’re cleaning house and a ray of light comes through the curtains, it’s amazing to see this vast array of particles floating around. It is these airborne particles that we ultimately breathe into our nasal passages or get in our eyes. The body’s response is to recognize these particles as foreign. It becomes overaggressive.” As the body misidentifies harmless foreign substances as dangerous invaders, it releases the antibody immunoglobulin E (IgE) to fight them off. IgE spurs the immune cells into action; they unleash the histamines that cause allergy symptoms.

Soothing Sensitive Skin

Sometimes allergies make you sneeze...and sometimes they make you itch. If a scratch-provoker of some sort leaves you lumpy and uncomfortable, take heart— you can find lasting relief.

By Susan Weiner

March 2007

The itchiness began a short time after Miriam Marshall placed the new ring on her finger. At first, the New Jersey grandmother thought of the irritation as nothing more than a passing annoyance. Soon, however, she was twisting the ring and scratching her fingers to try to alleviate the prickly sensation. When she finally removed the circle of silver, her ring finger—in addition to the fingers on either side—were covered with red, pinpoint bumps. “I have allergies, but I never had this type of reaction before. It felt like a scaly patch of irritation,” she recalls.

Miriam’s daughter Louise, who studied jewelry design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, and who designs and repairs jewelry for a living, had seen the skin reaction before—having experienced it on her own wrists. “Some individuals react to gold, but typically it’s the base metal nickel, which is mixed in with silver, that causes the reaction,” explains Louise. In fact, nickel is among the top ten causes of skin allergy. Repeated nickel-to-skin contact can culminate in allergic sensitivity, and sweat—which dissolves the nickel contained in jewelry—exacerbates the itchy reaction.

Contaminating Contact

Skin allergy—known formally as allergic contact dermatitis—varies in severity depending on the type of irritant, sensitivity of the individual and body part affected. Redness may clear up quickly with soap and water or progress into skin-damaging sores. For those with metal sensitivities, a huge array of everyday products—including zippers, cupboard handles, silverware, pens, doorknobs, scissors, eyeglasses and razors—can trigger reactions, making daily life a challenge. With metal allergies hiding around every bend, even sources as seemingly harmless as seawater, cement, shoe leather, soil and blue pottery can trigger unsightly and painful rashes, since these items typically contain the metals cobalt or chromate.

Identifying the Source

If a sudden case of contact dermatitis has you scratching like a dog with fleas, it’s time to put your sleuthing skills to work. That’s because skin allergies may not only erupt after contact with something new but can also be triggered by something that you’ve been using every day for years. And with over 3,000 known reaction triggers, finding what makes you itch can be a challenge.

Location is a vital clue. Anything on the face, scalp or neck suggests such cosmetics as shampoo, hairspray, shaving cream, moisturizer, makeup, perfume and sunscreen. Reviewing your personal products can help, although eyelid woes can be traced to nail polish and toothpaste can inflame lips. Body irritations are often linked to laundry detergents and fabric softeners, along with clothing dyes and finishes. Feet can be ...

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